She told MPs that this included a “foetal skeleton posed under a glass dome, a human thigh bone turned into a cane, a human jawbone necklace and the varnished skull of a six-year-old”.

His family, who had arrived from the Philippines in droves to celebrate his 50th birthday, beamed from the first several rows of glossy, varnished pews.

They were stripped of paint, polished and varnished for their second life.

A quick way to see whether something is laminated or varnished is to tear it, she explained.

How a star’s public persona, varnished or unvarnished, can dictate what they can get away with in the eye of their followers.